The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 A Sermon by St. Bernard

The Martyrdom of the Virgin is set before us, not only in the prophecy of Simeon, but also in the story itself of the Lord's Passion.  The holy old man said of the Child Jesus: Behold, this Child is set for the fall and the rising again of many  in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; yea (said he unto Mary), a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.  Even so, O Blessed Mother!  The sword did indeed pierce through thy soul! for nought could pierce the Body of thy Son, nor pierce thy soul likewise.  Yea, and when this Jesus of thine had given up the ghost, and the bloody spear could torture him no more, thy soul winced as it pierced his dead side―his own Soul might leave him, but thine could not.

The sword of sorrow pierced through thy soul, so that we may truly call thee more than martyr, in whom the love, that made thee suffer along with thy Son, wrung thy heart more bitterly than any pang of bodily pain could do.  Did not that word of his indeed pierce through thy soul, sharper than any two-edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit: Woman, behold thy son!  O what a change to thee!  Thou art given John for Jesus, the servant for his Lord, the disciple for his Master, the son of Zebedee for the Son of God, a mere man for Very God.  O how keenly must the hearing of those words have pierced through thy most loving soul, when even our hearts, stony, iron, as they are, are wrung at the memory thereof only!

Marvel not, my brethren, that Mary should be called a Martyr in spirit.  He indeed may marvel who remembereth not what Paul saith, naming the greater sins of the Gentiles, that they were without natural affection.  Far other were the bowels of Mary, and far other may those of her servants be!  But some man perchance will say: Did she not hope that he was soon to rise again?  Yea, she most faithfully hoped it.  And did she still mourn because he was crucified?  Yea, bitterly.  But who art thou, my brother, or whence hast thou such wisdom, to marvel less that the Son of Mary suffered than that Mary suffered with him?  He could die in the Body, and could not she die with him in her heart?  His was the deed of that Love, greater than which hath no man, hers, of a love, like to which hath no man, save he.